Wessex EcoEnergy

Dorset Energized recently attended and exhibited at the Dorset County Show, with a stand in the tent provided by Communities Living Sustainably in Dorset. Alongside us in the tent, were Wessex EcoEnergy – and below is some information about them that they provided us with:

Wessex ECOEnergy is a local renewable energy company based in Dorchester and provide renewable energy systems to homes and businesses.

One of the company founders attended Thomas Hardye School so grew up in the local area. They aim to take more of a consultative approach to your renewable energy needs and offer combined systems to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels and energy price rises.

They specialise in providing and combining:

The World’s leading Solar Thermal system: Which uses daylight to heat your hot water and central heating system. Clients can save on average 50% to 75% of their annual bills and get ongoing payments from the government via the RHI (renewable heat incentive) scheme.

Market Leading Biomass
Their Froling solution is a market leader offering pellet, wood and combined wood and pellet boilers. Also benefits from substantial RHI payments.

Primary business clients:
Hotels
Farms
Nursing Homes
Nurseries
Schools/Universities
Airports
Caravan Parks/Campsites
Supermarkets
Breweries
Any business that owns it’s own premises
Homes
Any home with a reliance on oil will make a substantial saving
Detached properties
Households with 4 or more people

Contact for a consultation and quote:
sales@wessexecoenergy.com
01305 250429

Green Deal Plan for Home: Here is the Start to Finish Process

It’s called the Green Deal – a project designed to help you make energy saving improvements at home and also to find the ideal way to make payments for the same. Home improvements for maximum energy conservation generally depend upon the structure of the house. However the main focus of the project should be including solid wall insulation, double glazing, boiler upgrades, and much many other things discussed below.

After many years of talking and planning about the Green Deal, the flagship energy saving scheme designed by the government is finally up and running. The aim of the project is to make every house warmer and much cheaper to run. To achieve this however, people are not required to shell large sums of money upfront.

The Green Deal project typically comprises of the following stages:

1. Assessment

Assessment involves inspection of your home or office premises by a fully accredited Green Deal Advisors. The respective advisor will perform the following functions:

Survey the entire property and come up with EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) in order to ascertain the current energy rating and also to recognize the types of developments which the Green Deal can fund.

In case the EPC recognizes any suitable measure fit for attaining Green Deal finance, the Green Deal Assessor will commence a Green Deal Occupancy Assessment and recognize what improvements are going to be cost effective and look out for any scope of cash back or subsidies.

Explain in detail the entire payment process

Prepare a Green Deal advice report that will outline all your available options

Also assist you in selecting a Green Deal Provider

Supervise the home improvement installations and sign off as soon as the work is complete.

2. Installation

The Green Deal Advisor will fix up with the Green Deal Provider and appoint a suitable Green Deal Installer for you. The installer will then make the required home improvement jobs – you and the Green Deal Advisor agreed upon. You are required to constantly access the installer to ensure he fulfills all the standards laid down by the Green Deal.

3. Repayment

You are required to pay back the cost of your various home improvement jobs over a period of time by means of electricity bills. Here your electricity supplier is supposed to pass on your payments to the respective Green Deal Provider. It is to be noted that the amount you pay via your electricity bill is not going to be more than you save upon your heating bills. This way you are guaranteed to be in profit from the very first day.

You’ll be required to pay for your home improvement services, but the payment you make will never be considered as your conventional personal loan. Reason – the payment will be attached to your electricity meter and paid back in the form of electricity bill. In case you vacate the property, the charge will be picked up by the new occupant, who will also benefit from the energy-efficient property.

A regular interest will be charged on all payments, but the rate will be fixed. In addition, you will be shown a complete schedule of all the payments before you finally sign up the plan.

Improvements covered by the Green Deal include:

Insulation

Glazing

Heating and hot power

Microgeneration

The non-domestic centers would also cover mechanical ventilation, heat recovery measures and lighting.

Incentives to Begin the Green Deal Scheme

Recently, the government launched the Green Deal Cask Back Scheme in an attempt to encourage more homeowners to take up home improvements right in the early days of Green Deal.

According to the scheme, the most eligible candidates will receive cash back guarantee as soon as they get their measures installed. The highest rates will be allotted to the earliest applicants.

The ECO (Energy Company Obligation)

The ECO for the large six energy suppliers comprises of three parts, including:

1. Affordable Warm Obligation

This will provide heating and hot water saving measures, glazing, micro generation technology and insulation to vulnerable and low-income households. There are however complex eligibility criteria for this scheme.

2. Carbon Saving Obligation

CSO is a means to provide funding in order to insulate solid-walled premises including those with tough to treat cavity walls.

3. Carbon Saving Communities Obligation

This will provide glazing and insulation measures to all people comprising of bottom 15% of the most deprived areas in UK.

How to destabilise the Green Energy Market?

Sent to us by Sally Cooke. This highly pertinent article might be of interest for Dorset Energized readers.

Written by Dr Philip Webber, a former research physicist and now visiting professor at the University of Leeds working to develop and finance city scale low carbon programmes, his opinion on the government’s recent track record on energy efficiency is :

“If you were trying to deliberately destabilise a market by misinformed intervention it would be hard to beat the last year of home energy efficiency finance.”

The article is available on the Scientists for Global Responsibility Website:

Excess Winter Deaths claimed an estimated 24,000 lives in England and Wales in 2011/12 and, although we do not fully understand all the reasons behind these figures, we know that some of them are caused by people living in cold homes.

Recent research by the Department of Climate Change has started to quantify the health benefits of installing energy efficiency measures in improving thermal comfort of homes. In a resource stretched environment unfortunately health issues often come down to basic cost/benefit analysis – and for that you require research and figures.

However initial research is very positive for energy efficiency measures impact on health. DECCs research has suggest that installing Cavity wall insulation has a financial benefit of £969 NPV (net present value) which, considering the average cost of this measure is generally about £500, indicates a good investment overall. Therefore saving money for public services which are providing healthcare.

Also an interesting new term for the author is ‘quality-adjusted life years’ – which is a measure used and defined by NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) for assessing the benefits from new drugs. Essentially if a drug costs more than £20,000-£30,000 (which is apparently the quantified benefit of a ‘quality-adjusted life year) then it is not likely to be issued.

Whatever your views on these kind of measurements – with the movement of Public Health into Local Authorities there is potentially more scope to work with this agenda in promoting and undertaking energy efficiency measures to improve health outcomes.

Perhaps in the future we can all be asking our GP’s for prescriptions for loft insulation? Benefiting the planet as well as our own health and addressing a terrible statistic still occurring in our nation.

Dorset Energy Advice Centre (DEAC) and North Dorset District Council (NDDC) are working together to deliver a FREE half day session on Fuel Poverty next Monday 4th March 2013, 9:30am – 12:30pm in their Council Chamber at NDDC, Nordon, Salisbury Road, Blandford Forum, DT11 7LL .

With the advent of the Green Deal and rising energy prices not likely to get cheaper, this training will give attendees an excellent introduction to the definition of the term, the causes, and what can be done to mitigate it.

The training is opened to all individuals who volunteer or work for organisations and community groups who have an interest in this field.

The training covers the following topics and provides a resource pack including a fuel poverty checklist:

What is meant by fuel poverty

How it can come about

How to spot it

What help is available

If people are unable to attend this session, other training sessions are being held across Dorset:

We just want to remind you of the Renewable Energy Exhibition THIS weekend, which has been planned to show off the latest technology from established local sources who will be on hand to advise and enthuse local people with the opportunities that exist for installing the right kind of equipment for your needs to save money, stay warmer, and help our countries’ CO2 emission targets for future generation

As proud supporters of Dorset Energized, FJ Chalke Wincanton will be on hand to give people the opportunity to test drive and have a chat about the 100% Electric Nissan LEAF – so if you would like a FREE test drive please remember to bring your driving licence!

Dorset Energized partners DEAC (Dorset Energy Advice Centre) will be demonstrating how to help people out of fuel poverty. They are also excited to be attending with the SAIL (Safe and Independent Living) Bus which offers lots of information about saving energy and space, where you can sit down and chat about energy efficiency and renewable energy concerns, or about changes in funding and the new opportunities with the Green Deal and ECO.

The Forum area is planning to stimulate discussion about the North Dorset District energy needs and how we can develop renewables to meet them. We believe that visitors will be mainly interested in how the Council plans to encourage renewable energy generation and the type of equipment and plant that they are likely to install.

Presentations by guest speakers will focus on wood heat, solar thermal and how the RHI may change later this year. Concerns about cost, the size of equipment and specific fuel requirements will be addressed during the Forum.

Admission is FREE and the Exchange has an excellent Cafe where refreshments will be available throughout the morning.

So come along, browse the stands and join the Forum for items that particularly interest you.

Please also ‘like’ and share this post to invite others to get… Dorset Energized!

Bioheat Gillingham comments:
"We wish to say a big thank-you to Dorset Energize for organizing such an informative and interesting exhibition today.
The forum provided some stimulating discussions and the guest speakers gave us a great insight into their fields of expertise. It was good to meet so many people with a passion for renewable energy.
We look forward to the next event.
"
February 16, 2013 a 7:33 pm

You may have heard on the news about Green Deal – a new scheme for funding a wide range of energy efficiency and renewable energy measures in order to encourage take up of these measures across the UK. Alongside the Green Deal there is the Energy Company Obligation, (ECO), which will be providing grant funding where market-driven measures won’t easily work.

Green Deal
The government launched the Green Deal in October 2012, and launched it again on Monday of this week as the finance for this scheme is now officially available. The Green Deal is a loan for one or many measures where the cost of the loan repayment is LESS THAN the amount of money saved on the energy bills, so not only is there no up front cost, there should be no ongoing costs. Furthermore, this loan is linked to the property not the person, so when someone sells their home, the new owner will take on the residue of the loan as they will also be receiving the benefits of the measures installed.

The process for arranging a Green Deal loan is new, and doubtless there will be a few teething problems. It starts with arranging for a Green Deal Assessment, which is carried out by either a Greed Deal Assessor or by a chartered surveyor or by someone whose assessment is reviewed and signed off by a chartered surveyor. This assessment looks at the energy demand of the property, and at the heating system, and at how the property is used. All properties currently have an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) which was produced by a Domestic Energy Assessor (DEA). A Green Deal Assessment is mostly the same but with some extra bits tagged on. To help provide customer confidence, Green Deal Assessors must be accredited. The report produced as a result of the assessment will identify a range of possible measures that could help improve the energy efficiency of the property and/or could provide renewable energy generation. The sum of money saved from implementing all of these measures over their individual lifetimes must work out less than the loan repayments for them to be eligible for the Green Deal loan.

The customer can take the Green Deal Assessment Report and go to ANY Green Deal Provider in order to continue. It is a bit like taking your prescription from your optician to any store to buy frames/lenses.
A Green Deal Provider will look at the Green Deal Assessment Report and discuss with the customer what their options are. The customer may not want to progress all of it or may also want extra bits done that wouldn’t be covered by the Green Deal. The Green Deal Provider will have access to a source of Green Deal funding, although approval is subject to a credit check. A Green Deal Plan for implementing one or a number of measures is then developed and agreed by both parties with a suitable cooling off period.

The Green Deal Provider will arrange for the measures to be installed. Once the installation is complete, then the loan repayments will be added to the electricity bill for the customer. (The reason it is added to the electricity bill is that not everyone is on gas.)

More information on the Green Deal can be found on the DEAC website including a PDF we have produced: www.deac.co.uk/Green-deal

ECO
ECO grant funding replaces the old CERT grants, and is supposed to be available now, but some of the details may still require clarification by Ofgem. Ofgem has provided each of the big energy suppliers with targets to reach for funding energy efficiency projects for vulnerable people, and for people in particular areas, and for people with particularly hard to treat homes. The funding can be applied for directly to the supplier, through a broker, or for Green Deal Providers, through a new online auctioning system.

ECO is divided into 3 funding streams:

1. Carbon Saving Communities Obligation (CSCO)
This provides insulation measures to households in specified areas of low income. It also makes sure that 15% of each supplier’s obligation is used to upgrade more hard-to-reach low-income households in rural areas.

2. Home Heating Cost Reduction Obligation (HHCRO – formerly Affordable Warmth Obligation)
This provides heating and insulation measures to consumers living in private tenure properties that receive particular means-tested benefits. This obligation supports low-income consumers that are vulnerable to the impact of living in cold homes, including the elderly, disabled and families.

The Centre of Sustainable Energy have launched a new resource ‘PlanLoCaL: energy efficiency and community Green Deal’ which is now available on their new PlanLoCaL website to coincide with the national launch of the Green Deal!

PlanLoCaL is a suite of resources and films to help communities plan for Low Carbon Living. This new pack includes information sheets, case studies, templates and tools. It provides lots of guidance on some tricky and complicated issues so that you don’t have to start from scratch. The aim is to help community groups to make the most out of the Green Deal and gain a better understanding of how to set up and run successful community-led energy efficiency projects in their local area.

Here’s their new video to spread the word about how communities can benefit from energy efficiency programms under the Green Deal:

Development of the resource was supported by a grant from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and draws on the collective knowledge and experience of staff at the Centre for Sustainable Energy. They have tried to address all of the questions and comments that have been fed in by community groups across the country to make the resource as useful as possible. They’ll also be producing a printed version of the resource in the near future.

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